Approval of wind farm project a long time coming for head of Cape Wind

Wednesday

Apr 28, 2010 at 12:01 AMApr 28, 2010 at 7:16 AM

Wednesday was a day long awaited by Jim Gordon, president of Cape Wind Associates. After nine years in a regulatory maze, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approved the 130-turbine project in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Cape Cod.

Staff reports

Wednesday was a day long awaited by Jim Gordon, president of Cape Wind Associates.

After nine years in a regulatory maze, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approved the 130-turbine project in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

“Today’s decision by Secretary Salazar (has) launched the American offshore wind industry,” Gordon said in an afternoon news conference from the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston. “It allows us to harness an abundant and inexhaustible resource for greater energy independence and green energy jobs.”

“Clearly the project comports with the national policy objectives and with state policy objectives,” Gordon added.

“There are lots of ideas about building wind farms in North Dakota and Texas and running multibillion dollar transmission lines across many states to deliver power to those coastal states,” Gordon said. "Now they can tap these resources for a more abundant energy portfolio.”

Gordon said he knew some opponents would be unhappy with secretary Salazar’s decision.

“We would like to reach out to them,” he said. “We want them to join the country and the community in ushering in a new era of renewable energy and prosperity. We can agree to disagree. Let’s be gracious.”

Gordon said he hadn’t read the full record of decision yet but that Cape Wind could live with the mitigation that included 130 turbines instead of 170 (which has been the plan for five years), painting the turbines off-white, angling them differently, reducing the lighting, etc.

They will also do more surveys for archeological sites in Nantucket Sound.

“We have never found any cultural artifacts,” he noted. “And if we do encounter any we will call a stop and have the state archeologist look at the information and probably just move the turbine.”

Gordon said Cape Wind continues negotiating with National Grid and hopes to reach an agreement to sell them electricity.

The life of the turbines will be 30 years.

Gordon said they would meet with bankers in Europe and American to arrange the financing for the project. Construction could start in 2012.

“This puts us at the starting gate and the gun has gone off,” he said. “We will be looking at other offshore wind opportunities on the east coast.”

Cape Codder

Legal challengers line up

There ultimately may be more groups vowing to fight the government’s approval of Cape Wind, but here’s a list of legal opponents that made their intentions known within three hours of the decision.

Lawsuits will be filed against the federal Fish and Wildlife Service and Minerals Management Service for violations of the Endangered Species Act by:

- Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound

- Three Bays Preservation

- Animal Welfare Institute

- Industrial Wind Action Group

- Californians for Renewable Energy

- Oceans Public Trust Initiative

- Lower Laguna Madre Foundation

Lawsuits will be filed against the federal Minerals Management Service for violations under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act by:

- Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound

- Duke’s County/Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen Association

- Town of Barnstable

A lawsuit will be filed against the federal government for violations of tribal rights by: